Relay for Life

This weekend we drove out to Pittsfield, Mass to go to the Relay for Life.  This is a Williams family tradition, that is in honor of Joel Husband's grandfather, Morris, who passed away before I had the chance to meet him.  All of his kids, and their kids, and in some cases, their kids, get together for the weekend, camp out, and walk around a lake in Pittsfield to raise money for cancer research.  It is a nice time for the family to get together.  Though, for the past many years I have had no way of handling it.  Either too pregnant, with a baby, or had just given birth.  Joel Husband and Joel Andrew went last year, but they stayed in a hotel room.  Not this year though!

Joel Husband and Joel Andrew camped out with the rest of the family this time, and James and I went, but we slept at Papa Red's house just 10 minutes away with Nana.  Camping is just not our thing, yet.  So, this is all Pa's family that comes to this event, but because they all know Nana's parents, and Nana's parents are in town (and we stayed at Nana's parents house) - they were there too.  It was very nice for everyone to see the kids and vice versa.  But today we are suffering a bit from let down - from all of the attention to now please watch a Mickey before we go to a grocery store...

Pa has 6 siblings - 6!  They all have kids, in ages that range from 12 all the way up to 40.  And, most of them were there.  Joel met his cousin, Jose, for the first time this weekend and the two of them were having a ball.  For most of it, Pa was hanging out with Joel Andrew and Joel Andrew can still not get enough of Pa.

James Morris was of course a huge hit.  He danced the night and day away and blew kisses and just was the in general adorable self he is.  He would sit in the wagon, and you guessed it, throw things out and we would pick them up and he would throw them out again.  There was no sign that he even had any surgery just a day before.

It was a nice family time.  Rather than stay Saturday night, we put the kids to bed in the car and then promptly drove home at 7 pm.  They passed out and it was a nice quiet ride.  Joel Husband and I got to chat, and we listened to a live Jimmy Buffet concert.  Who knew a 3 hour drive with kids could be so pleasant.  They went right up to bed when we got home (I love carrying a sleepy child to bed, my favorite thing in the whole world).  And, now, we are faced with lots of laundry, unpacking, and getting ready to do for the week!